The Jervis McEntee Diaries - July 13, 1885

Diary Entry:

Monday, July 13, 1885 Worked on my picture "Desolated Shrines" today and am getting on satisfactorily. Mr. Cantine informed Girard that he had got a place for Robbie Burns who has been here with us for a short time, with a farmer on their farm in Saugerties. I told Robbie of it and as Mr. Cantine wanted him to go out with him today I took him down town to get him some clothes. On the way down I talked with him, fearing he might feel reluctant to go away from home. I told him Mr. Cantine said the man he was going with was a good man and he would have a good home, and that if he would be a good boy and do his duty I would be a friend to him. I said he was old enough now to begin to help his mother who had had a hard time trying to keep her little family together. The poor little fellow cried and wiped his eyes but said nothing. I suppose the change looked formidable to him. I bought him a nice suit of tweed clothes for five dollars, a shirt and a comb, but Mr. Cantine had gone by the two o'clk train either having gone earlier than he intended or Girard misunderstood him. So he will probably go tomorrow. After I came back I worked a little more on my picture. After tea I drove down to Ned Tomkins and made a call and got 150 celery plants. He also gave me a great handful of sweet peas and some lovely roses. A dreadful accident occurred on Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis, yesterday I think, in which Sam Coykendalls brother John, his wife & child, his father-in-law, his mother-in-law and three others of his family lost their lives in a terrible squall which caught them while they were on the lake in a small steam launch. Sam went out there this morning. I wrote to John Andrews last night. Sara had a letter from Lucy today in which she says they go to Fort Gaston Aug. 4th and that Ray and his wife have already gone.